


wash these sins away

by celeste9



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke couldn't help but feel that it had been her actions that had led them all to this point, her failure to find a better way, her failure to figure out how to coexist with the Grounders. (spoilers through 2x6)</p>
            </blockquote>





	wash these sins away

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to clea2011 for the beta. Title from The Gaslight Anthem.

Clarke sat in the dirt, looking up at the sky. It still felt strange to do so, to look up and not down, to have everything she had ever wanted right at her fingertips. The world. The ground.

But she didn’t have everything. It had taken less than a day on the ground to realize that maybe no one ever could.

“Clarke,” a voice said, and Clarke turned her head to watch Bellamy walking towards her.

“Hey,” she said, drawing circles in the dirt with her fingers. There was mud beneath her fingernails. 

“They’ve been in there talking for a while,” Bellamy said as he sat down beside Clarke, folding his long legs underneath himself. 

“I guess it’s not easy to decide what to do about a kid who’s just shot up a village.”

“What do you want them to do?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke said honestly. The idea of anything bad happening to Finn horrified her, but what he had done… “I’m not sure what I want. He massacred those people when their worst offense was to be afraid.”

“He thought they had you. He was worried for you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? To know he did it for me?”

Bellamy looked chagrined. “I guess not. Sorry, that was stupid.”

“I don’t think you should try to defend him, anyway. What he did… How can we excuse that?” Clarke said, when what she really meant was, how can _I_ excuse it? How could she ever look Finn in the face again and not remember how he had looked standing there, firing on all those unarmed people? There had been a boy on the ground, their age, or maybe younger, and Finn had _killed_ him. When Finn had stepped towards her, that almost child-like smile of wonder on his face, Clarke hadn’t recognized him anymore. Where was the Finn she had cared for so much, the Finn who had argued for peace at every turn?

Clarke shook herself out of her own thoughts when Bellamy started to speak again.

“I was the one who let him go,” he said. “I was the one who let him go to that village with nothing but a gun and Murphy.”

“From what I saw, Murphy wasn’t the problem.” 

“No, but if I had been there… Maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe he would have listened to me.”

“You had Octavia to worry about. You can’t do everything.”

“But I could have done something. Something better than letting Finn run off when I knew he wasn’t okay, when I knew he wasn’t himself.”

“Listen to us,” Clarke said, almost wanting to laugh. Or was that cry? “We’re fighting over which of us is more to blame for Finn going crazy and killing a bunch of hostages.”

“I guess it is pretty dumb,” Bellamy admitted, the corners of his mouth uplifting ruefully.

“Whatever happened, whatever you or I did, it was Finn who pulled the trigger. No one is responsible for his actions but him.”

“It’s easier to say that than to actually believe it,” Bellamy said, and Clarke didn’t have an answer.

She couldn’t help but feel that it had been her actions that had led them all to this point, her failure to find a better way, her failure to figure out how to coexist with the Grounders. Clarke could only hope that this time things would be different. This time, they needed to make peace. If they didn’t she wasn’t sure any of them would make it.

It hadn’t actually been that long since they had fought the battle against the Grounders, but it felt like years. Clarke couldn’t reconcile the Finn she had known, the Finn she had - she had cared about, with the Finn she had seen in Lincoln’s village. But then, Clarke knew she wasn’t the same either.

“Maybe,” Clarke said, pausing to worry on her bottom lip before she continued, “maybe this has been building all along. Finn, I mean. Maybe we just didn’t see it. Or didn’t want to see it. The bomb was his idea, remember?”

“I remember.”

“Maybe all he needed was…”

“A spark?”

“Yeah. A spark.”

Bellamy was quiet. When he eventually spoke again, his tone was hushed, almost like he didn’t want his words to be heard but he couldn’t stop himself from saying them anyway. “I can see how losing you would be enough to make a guy snap.”

Clarke looked over at him but Bellamy was determinedly staring at the ground. “You didn’t snap.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not really the same, is it? Besides, I was pretty broken to start with.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Bellamy raised his eyes to meet Clarke’s, faintly smiling again. “Is that optimism I hear? Are you sure you’re Clarke?”

“Shut up,” Clarke said, shoving his shoulder, but she was almost smiling, too.

“He loves you, you know.”

Clarke’s smile faded. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“And you? Do you love him?”

Bellamy sounded nonchalant, as if he didn’t care, but Clarke knew he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t care. She wondered what he wanted her answer to be. 

When Clarke looked in towards the remains of Alpha Station, she saw Finn walking out. No guards. His shoulders were slumped and his steps quick, but there was an unmistakable look of relief mixed in with the guilt on his face. 

They weren’t going to kill him. If they were, they would never have let him leave on his own.

And Clarke… God help her but Clarke felt relieved, too. She thought that must make her a terrible person, if she could hold Finn’s life above the lives of all those innocent people he had killed, as if his held more value than theirs. Back on the Ark, they would have thrown him out of the airlock with barely more than a thought.

But this was the ground. Things were different on the ground.

“Finn,” Clarke said, and stood up. 

She stood up, and then she didn’t know what to do. Should she go to Finn, when she wasn’t sure she could even look him in the eye? Should she find her mother, and ask her why they had decided to let Finn go free? Should she ignore all of it and try to plan their next move to rescue everyone in Mount Weather? Too many possibilities swirled around in her head and Clarke felt frozen, unable to do anything.

“It’s going to be okay,” Bellamy said, looking up at her from where he was sitting.

“Yeah,” Clarke said, and offered him her hand. “It will be.”

It had to be. They were all going to be okay.

They were.

**_ End _ **


End file.
